“I will tell you what I know,” he said reluctantly. But he seemed unable to go on with his shameful story in the light of her proud eyes.
“I already know,” she said quietly, “that he abandoned Jimmy early in the afternoon, and that later he was seen with——”
“The woman was a waitress at the Barford Eagle,” Jarvis admitted reluctantly. “She has attended Whitcomb at table during his stay there; and so, of course——”
“I know who the girl is,” Barbara told him, in a low, hurried voice.
“He met the young woman on the fair grounds quite by accident,” Jarvis went on quickly. “You ought to believe that; and what followed was also, I am convinced, wholly unpremeditated.”
“Well?” urged Barbara steadily.
Jarvis clenched his strong hands on his knees and bent forward to stare frowningly into the fire.
“Whitcomb backed his own horse heavily and won,” he said slowly. “Shortly afterward an altercation arose between himself and—a young man, who had previously been interested in the girl, Jennie Sawyer. This person Bamber, became very abusive, and——”
Jarvis’s voice, which had been dry and caustic, as if he were reviewing unsavory circumstantial evidence, suddenly broke.